As long asyou've got a rich man on your arm, you don't need a big bag.

--Elizabeth Rickard

The $100 billion Iraqi Oil for Food program was by far the largest relief operation in the history of the United Nations. By extension, it's rapidly becoming the U.N.'s largest-ever scandal....

Those included rewarding friends and allies world-wide with oil allocations on very favorable terms, as well as extracting large kickbacks from oil traders and suppliers of humanitarian goods....

There can be little doubt that U.N. mismanagement contributed greatly to the negative perception of the anti-Saddam containment policy. There is also little doubt that the reward and kickback scheme--as well the possibility of exposure--was a factor as some countries weighed whether to back U.S.-led regime change in Iraq. There is even reason to suspect that some of the Saddam friends and allies who benefited may have been members of the U.N. Secretariat.

eave it to the Frenchto make pro-islamofascist-terrorist radical chic all the rage.

They and their moneygrubbing, Oil-for-Food defrauding cohorts abroad, and their power-hungry would-be terrorist sympathizers here, are all sporting "THE LOOK."

(How many of those oh so trendy Kerry-clinton-Kennedy hate-America, blame-America-first sound bites will Al-Jazeera broadcast today?)

The trusty triad's half-truths, exaggerations and outright lies, confounded by fog of war, vagaries of peace and uncharted territory of asymmetric netherworlds, remind us that things are not always what they first seem. The UN Oil-for-Food scandal, for example, has shown us it was not "going to war with Iraq" that was "all about oil," but rather, "notgoing to war with Iraq." The Left, we now see, had that one, (as they have most things), exactly backward.

The dernier cri of seditious and corrupt Leftists everywhere, pro-islamofascist-terrorist radical chic renders the Left, irrespective of policy, no less dangerous to Western civilization than the terrorists they seek to aid and abet.

hen ceci connolley referred the other night (Special Report-Brit Hume, FoxNews) to the decapitation of Nick Berg by the islamofascist animals as "part of the cycle of violence," my hair stood up on end.

It was clear to me that Connolley, a leftist, was attempting to subtly equate that unspeakable subhuman horror with the Dems' BushBash du jour, the so-called Iraqi-prisoner abuse.

(Equating the two explicitly would never sell, and besides, doing so wouldn't exactly be an image-enhancing move for Ms. Connolley, whose punditry has been certified never to breach the safely tautological.)

When I began to hear other lefties use the same term in precisely the same context, it became clear that "cycle of violence" was the Kerry-DNC response to the al-Qaeda slaughter.

By virtually ignoring the Nick Berg decapitation and instead continuing to foment the Iraqi-prisoner-"abuse" scandal, by attempting to draw a "cycle of violence" moral equivalency between the subhuman terrorists and a few infantile Americans, the left exposes its seditious, America-hating, power-hungry hand, its fundamental unfitness to serve... and a despicable brand of clinto-Kerryesque opportunism rooted in 60s-liberal cluelessness.

I can almost hear the whining. "We were on a roll with the Iraqi-prisoner "abuse." Why the [expletive] did al Qaeda have to one-up the Iraqi thing and kill our momentum?"

Kerry's premise is false, and notwithstanding this, his thesis is easily disproved empirically.

FALSE PREMISE

"I do solemnly swear (or affirm) that I will faithfully execute the office of President of the United States, and will to the best of my ability, preserve, protect and defend the Constitution of the United States."

Article II, Section 1 of the U.S. Constitution

According to the U.S. Constitution, preserving, protecting and defending America is what the presidency is all about.

From this it follows that the measure of the success of a commander-in-chief is not inversely related to number of soldier deaths that result from a commander-in-chiefprotecting America but rather, the number of deaths -- both soldier and non-soldier -- that are caused by a commander-in-chief failing to protect America.

It is important to note that not all such deaths necessarily occur under that failed president's watch.

Kerry's premise is, therefore, false, and exposes both Kerry's fundamental misunderstanding of the job of commander-in-chief and the lethal danger to a post-9/11 America that a Commander-in-Chief Kerry would pose.

THESIS EASILY DISPROVED EMPIRICALLY

Notwithstanding this, Kerry's thesis, itself, is belied by history. The obvious counterexamples: the presidencies of two of our most successful commanders-in-chief, Abe Lincoln, 562,130 deaths and FDR, 408,306.

Even if we apply the too-cute-by-half clintonesque Kerry semantic technicality, and limit the death count to those deaths coincident with the commander-in-chief's exit, the FDR counterexample still stands.

ASIDE: These transparent word games of Kerry and clinton derive from the same (if geographically disparate) provincial arrogance rooted in stupidity.

KERRY'S LETHAL DANGER TO A POST-9/11 AMERICA

Kerry's pronouncement, therefore, is more than simple... or even stupid... demagoguery. Kerry's pronouncement exposes Kerry's lack of historical perspective, Kerry's poor judgment, Kerry's critical-thinking deficiency, Kerry's fundamental misunderstanding of the job of commander-in-chief. It is a stark warning of the lethal danger to a post-9/11 America that a Commander-in-Chief Kerry would pose.

"At the time, '96, he [bin Laden] had committed no crime against America, so I did not bring him here because we had no basis on which to hold him, though we knew he wanted to commit crimes against America."

"The Bush Administration is so entralled by the idea of preemption and American military might. This is the consequence of the policy that regards legitimacy as largely a product of force and victory as primarily a triump of arms...

As Riefenstahl told it, editing-to-perfection was crucial. She insisted that the finished quality of "Triumph of Will" came from her editing, not from any imposition of "posed shots" or choreography on her part. With her innovative editing techniques, Riefenstahl deliberately and selectively aestheticized Hitler and the Congress' proceedings. By editing out a shot of Hitler wiping his nose and including instead "more interesting expressions"-- by eliminating the human -- Riefenstahl eliminated the inhuman.

The only difference today, in this era of ubiquitous cameras, continuous news and the shameless auteur-tyrant, is that the Washington Press Corps, spun by and on the Hollywood-Arkansas Axis, edits out the clintons' inhumanity in real time. . .

anitizing evil. Al Qaeda beheaded Nick Berg and sent us a ready-for-primetime video of the butchering.

Why isn't 60 Minutes, John Kerry and his leftwing agitprop machine all over this one? I mean, the visuals and audio are powerful theatre and, after all, this one isn't "just about sex."

We can safely assume John Kerry and his leftwing cabal do, in fact, do "evil," given the immense fuss they're currently making over the Iraqi-terrorist/prisoner "abuse" thing.

To date, their acknowledgement of this grotesquely, tellingly subhuman act has been limited to one-sentence "just the facts, ma'am" reports and, when pressed, requisite if perfunctory poses of faux outrage.

John Kerry and his leftwing agitprop machine are ignoring the subhuman horror of Al Qaeda's beheading of Nick Berg... and perhaps more important, they are marginalizing its significance to our war against these animals. This act defines the enemy as precisely and vividly as the 9/11 attacks define them. This act serves to warn us as urgently as the 9/11 attacks warn us.

Sanitizing this evilis a dangerous, anachronistic leftwing conceit we can no longer afford...

It matters not one whit whether the sanitizing is done for political gain as is the case with Kerry (and with clinton before him)... or whether the sanitizing is done to satisfy some misguided, naive notion of journalistic "aesthetics," (whatever that is).

Either way, we lose.

Film Noir in the White House

by Mia T

"Read my future." - "You haven't got any."

---Exchange between Orson Welles and Marlene Dietrich, Touch of Evil

"All propaganda has to be popular and has to adapt its spiritual level to the perception of the least intelligent of those towards whom it intends to direct itself."

---Adolf Hitler, Mein Kampf

eni Riefenstahl, the film genius who outmaneuvered propaganda minister, Joseph Goebbels to chronicle Hitler's 1934 Nuremberg rallies in perhaps the most notorious documentary ever filmed, "Triumph of the Will," symbolizes the naïve actress and director who is induced to deal with devils -- i.e., Nazi-pantalooned v. nasty, pantless....

After the war, Riefenstahl excused her effort as pure documentary -- watch for Streisand, Spielberg, Geffen et al. to do the same one day -- yet she compiled one section, Hitler's motorcade to Munich, from several different events and shot the closeups of Nazi leaders at the podium in a staged studio sequence.

As Riefenstahl told it, editing-to-perfection was crucial. She insisted that the finished quality of "Triumph of Will" came from her editing, not from any imposition of "posed shots" or choreography on her part. With her innovative editing techniques, Riefenstahl deliberately and selectively aestheticized Hitler and the Congress' proceedings. By editing out a shot of Hitler wiping his nose and including instead "more interesting expressions -- by eliminating the human --Riefenstahl eliminated the inhuman.

The only difference today, in this era of ubiquitous cameras, continuous news and the shameless auteur-tyrant, is that the Washington Press Corps, spun by and on the Hollywood-Arkansas Axis, edits out the clintons' inhumanity in real time. . .

"DSA/USA, the 'Democratic Socialists of America' are the U.S. arm of the Socialist International. They share the symbol of the fist holding the rose, and they share the tasks to be accomplished  in our case, an altogether different America ...

"Some time ago  the date is missing from the descriptions  58 members of the U.S. House of Representatives formed a subdivision of the Democratic Socialists of America and called it the Progressive Caucus. Their statement of purpose, as well as their membership list, formed an integral part of the dsausa Web site (www.dsausa.org ). The membership list appeared on the screen with the continuous background of the fist holding the rose, should anyone have missed the connection with the Socialist International."

Rep. Nancy Pelosi, D-Calif., the likely [she is now] new minority leader in the House of Representatives, serves on the executive committee of the socialist-leaning Progressive Caucus, a bloc of about 60 votes or nearly 30 percent of the minority vote in the lower chamber.

The Democratic Socialists of America's chief organizing goal is to work within the Democratic Party and remove the stigma attached to "socialism" in the eyes of most Americans.

"Stress our Democratic Party strategy and electoral work," explains an organizing document of the DSA. "The Democratic Party is something the public understands, and association with it takes the edge off. Stressing our Democratic Party work will establish some distance from the radical subculture and help integrate you to the milieu of the young liberals."

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